The 2016 FIDE World Chess Candidates Tournament is a 14-round event, which determines the next Challenger to Magnus Carlsen's title, is taking place in Moscow from March 10–30. Eight players, including six of the World’s top-ten rated grandmasters. The time control is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The guaranteed prize fund is US $420,000.
| Round 4, Tuesday 15 March 2016 | ||
| Svidler Peter |
½-½
|
Aronian Levon |
| Caruana Fabiano |
½-½
|
Topalov Veselin |
| Karjakin Sergey |
1-0
|
Anand Viswanathan |
| Nakamura Hikaru |
½-½
|
Giri Anish |
Earlier in the day I decided to stand outside the tournament hall, at around 2.45 p.m. (the round starts at three). I wanted to capture the entry of different players coming to the tournament hall, and the people who accompany them. As it turns out all the players come walking from their hotel Four Seasons, as it is just a short distance away from the playing venue. Everyone comes with a partner, coach or a second, except for Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura. Here’s the video:
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1.Nf3 d5 2.e3!? What’s going on?
They have played 26 games against each other (including blitz, rapid and classical), and Karjakin has not been able to win a single game against Vishy Anand. "I am very happy as today is my first classical win against Anand", said Sergey said when he was asked how he felt about the game. Karjakin has shown a thorough disdain for theoretical continuations at this event, especially with white. Against Svidler he chose the relatively unambitious 9.Nxd4!? and today against Anand he came up with this highly interesting idea of 8.Qc2 followed by 9.h4!? Sergey thanked his seconds who had worked really hard to prepare this new idea. As Peter Svidler rightly pointed out, "To play non-theoretical lines, you need to know a lot of theory."
White’s eighth move was Qc2 which has been played only seven times before. One of the players who has tried it is the Russian Igor Lysyj. It could be possible that the 2014 Russian Champion is working as a second for Sergey. But the move 9.h4 was a complete novelty. The curious thing about the game is the Karjakin castles after a few moves, which makes h4 looks silly. As the Russian himself mentioned after the game, the move h4 provoked Vishy to play f5. This weakened a few of the squares in Black’s camp.
After the opening Vishy had a relatively fine position. But after a small inaccuracy (18…Ba6) followed by a bigger mistake (21…Qd6) the Indian player already had a highly unpleasant position. The result ending was so passive for Black that Karjakin could take his own merry time to deliver the final blow. An impressive victory for Sergey.
The side with hanging pawns must keep more pieces on the board. The fewer the pieces, the weaker these pawns become. Hence Anand’s 18…Ba6 was a positional error.
Let Sergey explain the nuances of his novelty 9.h4!?
Anand number two in India: In 1986, with a rating of 2405, Vishy Anand shot ahead of all his compatriots. This India number one post he preserved right until the 15th of March 2016, until the fateful game in which he lost against Sergey Karjakin. Pentala Harikrishna who has been hovering around the 2760 Elo mark for quite some time now, finally made the leap and became India number one based on the live Elo rankings.
Read more about it in ChessBase India and in this F.Sport report
Everyone in the chess world knows what a powerful theoretician Anish Giri is. However, every once in a while someone tries to test him and most of the times this experiment turns out to be unsuccessful. Today Hikaru Nakamura came all prepared from the white side of the Meran Variation of Semi Slav.
Anish on the other hand was treading cautiously. Not because he didn't know the line, but he was trying to recollect his analysis. He found all the resources for Black and avoided all the pitfalls that Nakamura had prepared. The result was a quick draw in under an hour.
Black to play. This is the key position of the entire game. Hikaru had come with the hope that Anish would play 24…Kg7 here. At first sight that looks like a natural move. But it doesn’t work because after 25.fxg6 fxg6 26.Rf7+ Kxh6 27.Raf1. White gets an advantage. However, Giri didn’t fall for the trick. He simply played 24…c5 and held the game to a draw.
RedBull and Nakamura – always together!
Levon Aronian is an artist on the chess board. Some of his calculations are so deep
that even the computers take a while to understand the intricacies
Such is modern chess – you come with a new idea in the sharp line and if the opponent hasn't studied it, he is burnt alive. But if he has it covered, it ends in a draw. In any case this was an important game as far as the theoretical development of this line is concerned.
Hikaru speaks about his game with Anish but also about the role of his second Kris Littlejohn
Apart from the game analysis check out which movie Anish and Sopiko watched the night before
The couple is glad that the game ended soon and they can get back to their James Bond movie!
Peter Svidler (above) looks extremely well prepared at this event. In the English Opening 5.e4 Variation, a line that has been popularized by Anish Giri, Aronian played a new move with the 9...Nc5! But that was an expected novelty as the previous moves that had been played were not so great. Peter had studied this variation really deeply, all the way up to the 18th move.
At the start Aronian was up to the task. He managed to survive the opening and took the game into a relatively equal position. An inaccuracy on the 22nd move meant that the Russian was pressing once again. Though the position was pleasant it was not sufficient to carve out a victory. In the end many of the pieces and pawns were exchanged and with rook and three pawns for each side, the game was drawn.
Here’s a nice position from the game. It’s White to play. But you will never find the answer if you do not approach it prophylactically. Think about what is Black’s idea and come up with the solution.
Peter not only speaks about the Candidates but also whether he is following the 20-20 cricket world cup
It was a refreshing change in the opening as Caruana, instead of going for the Ruy Lopez, played the Giuoco Piano as White. Both the players handled the opening phase of the game quite well and the position was relatively balanced. In the middlegame Caruana shut the centre with the move d4-d5 and the game became quite sharp. Fabiano concentrated on queenside play while Veselin tried to create inroads in the kingside with f5 break. In mutual time trouble Topalov went completely wrong and simply blundered.
In the above position Caruana, who was White, could have just taken on f6 with 41.Rxf6 and after Qxf6 play Rb2. He is simply a piece up. The neat point is that Bf5 doesn’t work due to Qxf5! Instead Fabiano went 41.R1b5 and messed up the win. It was such a superior position for the American that a full point for him was a foregone conclusion. The blunder surprisingly was the 41st move! The win was no longer apparent, and in the rook endgame the game was simply drawn. A heartbreaking result for Fabiano and quite a favourable break for Topalov.
Look who made it to the tournament hall – Mark Izrailovich Dvoretsky! All these talented young GMs Maxim Matlakov, Ildar Khairullin and Ian Nepomniachtchi must have at some point or the other in their careers learnt from this great trainer or at least his books.
It was truly a sight to behold as the 68 year old trainer was still pretty sharp and seeing some nice variations. For example the intermediate check of 31.Rf8+ in Svidler - Aronian was pointed out by him.
Alexander Bakh, Anatoly Bykhovsky and Vladimir Tukmakov
Microscopic attention: looking at a scoresheet with a magnifying glass
Many veterans came to have a look at the games in the fourth round
There is no age limit to fall in love with the game!
Alireza Bahari Rad and Amirreza Pourramezanali from Iran enjoy the majestic chess set at the venue
Top three Indian female players Mary Ann Gomes (left), Eesha Karavade and
Soumya Swaminathan are immersed in the analysis of Anand’s game
All pictures by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India
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